Seafood cravings: Lemon drizzled grilled fish steak, served with lightly spiced jumbo prawns on pesto fettuccine

The picture does not do justice to how yummy it actually tastes, so feast your eyes on the photo but try this at home!

Grilling is one of those techniques of cooking that preserve the nutrition, is quick and brings out food that is visually pleasant and tastes superb. This method seals the juices and flavours of the meat inside, leaving it flaky and crispy with mouth-watering grill marks on the outside but juicy and moist on the inside.

A stove top griller is the best thing that happened to me. Since I cook a limited quantity of meals, the one made by Prestige is good enough to cook a grilled meal for four.

During the winter chill, inviting your friends for an outdoor grilled meal is just the kind of thing you need to complete the magic of winter.

Below, I will give you two grilled seafood recipes; grilled fish steak and grilled jumbo prawns.

Here are the two recipes you can play around with to wow your guests:

Grilled Fish Steak

A delicious steak depends more on the quality and freshness of the meat. So make sure you are using fresh meat.

 

Ingredients:

4 steaks or fillet of any firm white fish (red snapper, Kingfish or becti are great choices)

 For marinating:

I often just use black pepper corn, sea salt and olive oil or pure butter to marinate steaks. It works wonders to bring out the natural flavours of the meat.

Garlic paste - 2 tsp

Light soya sauce - 1 tbsp

Lemon juice - 1 tsp

Red chilli flakes - 1 tsp (adjust quantity as per your taste)

Ground black pepper - ½ tsp

Salt - to taste

Chopped fresh dill

Chopped fresh oregano (optional)

Virgin olive oil - 3/4 tbsp

Method: 

1) Wash the steaks or fillets and dry excess water using a kitchen towel.

2) Mix all the spices, garlic, lemon juice, salt, pepper, chillies, soya sauce and olive oil, and rub the mixture lightly over the steaks. Put aside to marinate for two hours.

3) Just before grilling, add the chopped oregano.

4) On a well oiled and heated stove top pan griller or an outdoor griller, place your fillets/steaks and grill each side for five minutes. Spray a little olive oil while grilling.

Over-cooked fish never tastes good, so make sure you time yourself whilst grilling the fish. A good fish steak is moist and flaky from inside and lightly crispy on the outside.

Before serving, sprinkle chopped dill, some freshly cracked black pepper and a slice of lemon.

Grilled jumbo prawns:

These beautifully grilled and delicately spiced jumbo prawns can impress your guests to no limit. Usually I use the U10 category of freshly caught jumbo prawns; there are about seven to ten pieces in a kilogram. Three to four prawns in a serving is large enough serving provided you are serving them with sides. I generally serve about two to three of them paired with a medium sized grilled fish fillet.



Ingredients:

U10 jumbo prawns - 1 kg (8-10 pieces washed and deveined with the tail still intact)

For marinating:

Sea salt

Freshly cracked black pepper

Chopped garlic

Sweet thick soya sauce (optional)

Extra virgin cooking oil

Method:

1) Mix all the spices together and apply to the prawns with your hands. Make sure they are covered well and put aside to marinate for an hour.

2) Place the prawns on a hot oiled stove top grill and grill for 2-3 minutes on each side.

How to serve:

You can serve these prawns with stir-fried vegetables topped with toasted nuts or on top of a bed of fettuccine pasta dressed with a home-made anchovy sauce or pesto.

The grilled prawns paired with the grilled fish steaks, on a bed of fettuccine makes it a scrumptious and filling meal.

I served the prawns on a bed of fettuccine but that depends totally on you. You can put them all together or serve them separately and they will still have visitors craving more. I have served both separately and together, the pictures above have shown you just how splendid they look.

PS: The picture does not do justice to how yummy it actually tastes, so feast your eyes on the picture but try this at home to have that craving satiated!

PHOTO: FARAH KAMAL

This recipe originally appeared here.